VOLT Session: Youth Work Volunteering in Faith-Based Organisations

Youth Work volunteering, like many different forms of volunteering, has taken a knock in recent years with a reduction in both staff and volunteers engaging in this challenging & rewarding work, and this impact been felt in faith-based volunteering organisations throughout Northern Ireland.

EANI statistics show 95% of their Youth Work workforce are volunteers with a small percentage delivered by paid part-time and full-time youth work staff (5%). With such a high dependence on volunteers, it is clear that the sustainability of youth services in Northern Ireland is intrinsically linked to the recruitment and retention of volunteers to ensure continued delivery of services. But Evangelical Alliance’s research in 2021 found that a quarter of church leaders perceived a significant decrease in volunteers and Youth Initiatives have noted that members have raised concerns regarding recruiting and retaining youth work staff within the faith-based sector.

Volunteer Now has partnered with Youth Initiatives and Youth Link to try and address this problem by developing training and toolkits that will promote and support Youth Work Volunteering in Faith-Based organisations. To ensure that whatever we create really meets the needs of the faith-based volunteering sector and solves the problems they are experiencing, we wish to bring together such groups to hear, in their own words, what their experiences are with Youth Work volunteering and what they would need & want from us.